The Fast Charger adaptor for KS16X - 3A/5A

[Garrie Lim]

As some of you may know, I made a fast charger adaptor for my KS16X a few months back. I have fast chargers that i use for my Escooters, so why pay money to buy more chargers? They all work the same, you just have to get the polarity right.

I mated a voltmeter(calibrated using multimeter) to the adaptor, mine is a Gx16-3 to Lenovo adaptor. I've also made a couple of Gx16-4 to Lenovo adaptors for my friends so they can re-use their fast chargers they purchased for their gotways.

 

Here it is charging at 3A

 

 

 

Here it is charging at 5A

 

 

I'm happy to report it works, because the other result would probably be killing my less than 12hr old KS16X.

 

In the beginning when i tried to test it on KS18XL, i plugged in the adaptor without connecting to any fast charger, there was no reading on the voltmeter. That was strange as we usually use this voltmeter to check our escooter battery voltage on the fly. A little digging and research later, i learnt that there is a diode in KS wheels that prevent back flow of voltage/current?

 

Anyway, i decided to test this theory of the diode being a "gate" of sorts. When i got home, i plugged in my stock 16X charger to one port, and then i plugged the adaptor to the other port(without fast charger), and lo and behold, i got a reading!

 

This means the gate is open when you charge and the voltage can be measured.And since there is a reading on the voltmeter, it would mean that the polarity is 99% correct.

 

I took the plunge and connected my fast charger to the adaptor, and then plugged it in........

 

And now you know how the story ends.... 

 

Edited August 24, 2019 by Garrie Lim

[ir_fuel]

1 minute ago, Garrie Lim said:

i learnt that there is a diode in KS wheels that prevent back flow of voltage/current?

Yes and that's a good thing. Gotway doesn't and if you connect your charger to the wheel and the charger is not connected to a power outlet you get sparking because current will flow from your battery to your charger.

[Garrie Lim]

7 minutes ago, ir_fuel said:

Yes and that's a good thing. Gotway doesn't and if you connect your charger to the wheel and the charger is not connected to a power outlet you get sparking because current will flow from your battery to your charger.

There are tens of thousands of escooterist in Singapore. And we all agree the correct way is to always turn on charger first before plugging it in. 

 

I dunno why other people would do any differently. 

 

Always turn on power first, then plug in. 

[ir_fuel]

8 minutes ago, Garrie Lim said:

I dunno why other people would do any differently. 

Because if you want to avoid a spark in a system you first do the connection, and then turn on the power.

[mrelwood]

42 minutes ago, ir_fuel said:

Because if you want to avoid a spark in a system you first do the connection, and then turn on the power.

Generally yes, but with a Gotway the system power is always on so the voltage difference of the connected components is a lot smaller if the charger is plugged in when connecting to the wheel. Smaller voltage difference = less sparks.

[ir_fuel]

36 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

Generally yes, but with a Gotway the system power is always on so the voltage difference of the connected components is a lot smaller if the charger is plugged in when connecting to the wheel. Smaller voltage difference = less sparks.

Yes, but this is not supposed to be "standard procedure", that a charge port also outputs current ... hence we do it the other way around.

[mrelwood]

18 hours ago, ir_fuel said:

Yes, but this is not supposed to be "standard procedure", that a charge port also outputs current ... hence we do it the other way around.

I’m sorry, I meant to quote @Garrie Lim, since you and I seem to agree on this already.

 

[ir_fuel]

No problem  

[Garrie Lim]

20 minutes ago, mrelwood said:

I’m sorry, I meant to quote @Garrie Lim, since you and I seem to agree on this already.

 

Thanks for the info, generally over here the escooter community agrees to always turn on charger before plugging in. 

Sparks always occur when u plug in the charger first before turning it on. 

 

Personally for me, I’ve used many different chargers from many brands of different amperages(2a/3a/4a/5a/6.5a and even 8.5a)

 

i have never once experience a single spark with my escooters. And I ride many different models of escooters and have different battery modifications done to them as well. 

 

Hence it is my my personal belief to always turn on charger THEN plug into your electric vehicle. 

 

But I guess we just use what works yeah?

[mrelwood]

 

6 hours ago, Garrie Lim said:

Hence it is my my personal belief to always turn on charger THEN plug into your electric vehicle. 

If it would spark when done differently, and with your method it doesn’t, I don’t think much harm can be done doing it your way. Theorizing about matters is interesting, but can rarely take all aspects in account. 

MacBook charger for example, no matter if it is connected to the laptop first or not, it will always give a very notable spark when plugged in the wall socket.

I don’t believe it’s the sparks that harm a device, unless they happen at the wrong place. I would always choose a wall outlet spark before a wheel charging port spark.

[Nekko]

Hi Garrie,

Do you think you could post a diagram of the wiring for the Gx16-3 to Lenovo adaptor ? I'm thinking of building one so I can reuse my Charge Doctor for the KS-16X.

 

[Garrie Lim]

On 11/18/2019 at 4:39 AM, Nekko said:

Hi Garrie,

Do you think you could post a diagram of the wiring for the Gx16-3 to Lenovo adaptor ? I'm thinking of building one so I can reuse my Charge Doctor for the KS-16X.

 

Hey, I’ve been away for a long time and haven’t checked back. Do a quick search in this forum, I started another thread regarding the polarity info for the gx series adaptors.